


Don't Judge a Book By Its Metadata

by Kalcifer



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fluff, Libraries, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:07:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28163679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalcifer/pseuds/Kalcifer
Summary: Fourteen’s gone and died again, and now they're a librarian. Of course, there's a lot to be done at their new job, so it only makes sense for Tender to come help out.
Relationships: Fourteen Fifteen/Tender Sky
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	Don't Judge a Book By Its Metadata

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GoldandScarlett](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldandScarlett/gifts).



> This was written entirely as a birthday present so it's even more gratuitous and silly than usual. I'm having a good time though.

Tender wasn’t expecting to hear from Fourteen only a day after their latest death, but she wasn’t complaining. Not until she read the message, anyway. It turned out they were on Memorious, and they said they were very sorry but they thought it best if they stayed there for the time being.

Tender tried to be chill about it. Fourteen was more than capable of making decisions for themself, and it was none of Tender’s business what they did on their own time.

That mindset carried her through three half-finished drafts of a response before she gave up. Getting her thoughts down on a digital approximation of paper was not going to happen. Clearly, she had to find another method of communication.

Which was why it made total sense for her to charter a ship to Memorious the next day. If Cascara needed the Beloved Dust for something, she’d be waiting on Fourteen anyway, so it wasn’t like Tender was abandoning her duties or anything. It was a rational and calculated decision.

She had plenty of time to go over that explanation on the trip over. When she tracked Fourteen down, though, they didn’t ask for it. They didn’t ask anything, simply running up and taking her hands in theirs. “Tender! Oh, it’s so good to see you.”

Tender’s carefully constructed explanation vanished from her mind, but that was fine. The delighted look on Fourteen’s face was all the reason she needed.

This Fourteen was tall and muscular, with long black hair and a purple jumpsuit. Even their signature sunglasses had a purple tint to them.

“Hey,” Tender said. “I like the new look. Even if you are kind of inching in on my aesthetic there.”

Fourteen shrugged sheepishly. “I’m sorry? I don’t have much of a say in my new identities.”

“That doesn’t mean you can’t buy new clothes once you’re in them.” She shook her head, smiling. “Seriously, though. How are you?”

“Well, generally speaking, I’m fine. It’s just that I seem to have a job already over here, and I would hate to let my coworkers down…” They didn’t meet Tender’s eyes, apparently aware of the irony there. “I don’t intend to stay for long. Just until they can replace me, you know?”

It was such a Fourteen dilemma that she couldn’t help but laugh. “Yeah, I know. I’m not going to leave you alone on a ship where you don’t know anyone because you’re too nice to say no, though.”

Their face lit up. They did an awful job of fighting it back to contrition before saying, “I’d love to have you here, of course, but I don’t want to keep you. I don’t think you’ll find the library very interesting. And it’s not like I don’t know anyone, there’s…” They cast about for a name. After a moment, it was clear they could tell they weren’t helping their case, but they kept searching until they finally reached one. “There’s Accessory Larceny, they’re decent.”

“Uh-huh,” Tender said, amused. “So, about this library?”

“Well, you see, now that Memorious is gone, they need people to keep the collection in order. It’s just that, because they’ve been relying on their Divine for so long, the number of people who actually know how to do that is fairly low. They’re working on training more, of course, but until then…” They waved their hands in a vague gesture that probably conveyed some mixture of obligation, interest, and apology.

Tender paused. “And do you know how to do that?”

“I’m a librarian,” Fourteen said, which didn’t actually answer her question.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll help you.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Fourteen said, in a tone that made it clear they were being polite and very much wanted her help.

“Yeah, but it will be fun! I get to visit another ship, I get to hang out with you, it’ll be great.” Tender was actually starting to talk herself into it too. Sitting around with Fourteen all day in a place they were unlikely to be disturbed was practically a vacation. Sure, she’d never worked in a library before, but it was just books. How hard could it be?

Fourteen smiled. “All right, then, let me show you around.”

* * *

The room Fourteen led her to was smaller than she’d expected. As if to make up for it, every wall was lined with shelves, which were in turn bursting with books and journals and magazines of every kind. She whistled. “No wonder they need you.”

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Fourteen said. “This is all about the history of the Fleet, so it shouldn’t be too hard to organize.”

“Let’s start with a basic subject sort, then.” Tender sank her vision deeper into the Mesh. Rather than a clear network like she’d been expecting, the books existed as discrete entities with occasional connections trailing between them, often draped over or tangled with each other.

She frowned. “Wait, where’s the collection?”

“The bulk of it is still in the central archives. It’s just that Memorious was the one integrating new works into it, and after they died, everyone was so caught up in the panic that slipped their minds.” They smiled apologetically. “Like I said, you don’t have to help if you don’t want to.”

Tender’s dreams of being able to swoop in and fix everything in seconds with her cool psychic powers may have taken a hit, but she wasn’t going to give up that easily. She took a closer look and saw that the books’ metadata was still intact. Perfect.

She didn’t bother responding to Fourteen, instead focusing on constructing a net that would allow her to collect only the texts focused on the founding of the Fleet. She’d need to widen her subsequent queries, but this seemed like a safe bet for a test run.

The net came into being just as she’d imagined it. Fourteen inched closer to her. “Tender, I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” they said.

She ignored them, pulling the net through one of the shelves. It passed through the material without issue, gathering only a few select books while leaving the rest behind. What she hadn’t accounted for was the way those books collided with their neighbors. By the end of the shelf, half the books were caught up in the net, with no way to tell which of them were relevant and which weren’t.

She dismissed the net sheepishly, causing the books to collapse in a heap on the floor. “Whoops.”

Fourteen stared at the pile. “Oh no.”

Tender winced. “I’m so sorry, I had no idea that would happen. I’m sure I can fix it if I try again -”

“Thank you, but there really isn’t all that much to do. It’s probably better to do it manually.” Fourteen hid a smile behind their hand. “We can start by cleaning up this mess.”

“Yeah…” It was fine. This still counted as spending time with Fourteen under less-than-deadly circumstances, which was the entire point. She could put up with a little menial labor. Besides, it would be out of the way soon enough, and then they’d be back to the librarianing.

* * *

The good thing about stacking books was that it gave Fourteen time to explain what they were actually supposed to be doing. “You had the right idea,” they commented. “Arranging books by subject is an important step. First, though, we need to get them entered into the system. That means going through them and taking note of information like year, author, and some subject keywords.”

“That makes sense,” Tender said. “So, what, we’re just copying all that into the central database?”

“Basically. It’s not the most exciting work, but you know, it’s honestly rather satisfying.” They sounded far more pleased by the idea of cataloguing than a person had any right to be. Tender loved them so much.

Her enthusiasm faded as she realized how tedious the work was. It required enough attention that they couldn’t really hold a conversation, but not so much as to hold her interest. She was just picking up a book, checking the metadata, moving it into identical fields on the larger network, and then moving to the next one until she couldn’t resolve the text into words anymore.

There had to be a better way. This was exactly the sort of thing computers were for when you didn’t have an imagination.

Maybe she couldn’t do something as flashy as creating a magic net, but that didn’t mean she had to sit around and act like she hadn’t been blessed by Anticipation. She was better than that.

She slowed in her work, making sure to keep picking up books so Fourteen wouldn’t guess what she was doing. Instead, she worked on an algorithm that would grab the data directly from the books. The code itself was trivial - the hardest part was making herself work on that level rather than instantly manifesting a pipeline or something of the sort.

Once it was finished, it was time for a test run. She aimed her algorithm at all the books she’d been pretending to enter. She could show off once she’d gotten caught up again.

She watched the fields fill themselves in, feeling very pleased with herself. Take that, boring drudge work, go do yourself from now on. She couldn’t believe no one had thought of this before.

Then she took a closer look at the data that was coming in. It was all technically correct, but the formatting was a mess. Articles at the end of phrases, names in every order imaginable, a couple of fields entirely transposed. Checking and fixing it all would take just as much work as copying things by hand.

She groaned. Fourteen looked up, concerned. “Is something wrong?”

“It’s fine,” Tender said, because she didn’t want Fourteen to worry. “It’s just, there are so many books. How do you manage to get through them all?”

“Well, it’s kind of nice, actually. I like seeing how much information we can store and pass on to the future.” They frowned. “It was more optimistic when Memorious was alive, of course.”

“Yeah…” Tender gave a second to mourn everything they’d lost. Then she shook herself out of it. “Okay, but that doesn’t answer how you make yourself do this boring copying thing all day.”

“Oh, that.” Fourteen thought for a moment. “I probably couldn’t have, in my last body, but right now it’s not so bad.”

“Huh.” Tender had known that more than Fourteen’s appearance changed with each transfer of consciousness, but it was always weird how calm they were about it. She didn’t think she’d be able to let go of her past selves so easily.

“Now, as much as I do like talking to you, I was rather in the middle of something…” Fourteen gave her a meaningful look.

“Right. Of course. Go right ahead,” Tender said, in a very smooth and not at all suspicious way. She needed them distracted so she could pick up all those books she’d missed anyway.

* * *

Tender eventually fell into a rhythm despite herself. Pull the data, format the data, push the data, grab the next book. It still required most of her attention, but she had some to spare for things like staring at Fourteen and wondering if Memorious had any good restaurants.

She was jolted out of this half-aware state by the sound of gunfire. Before either of them could react, a man burst through the door, a strange looking gun in his hands and another strapped to his back. He smiled when he saw them. It was a patronizing smile, and if Tender had been ready to fight him for disturbing the peace of the library, now she was ready to destroy him. 

“It looks like our work’s been done for us,” he said. “So, now that your fake god is dead, are you ready to come home?”

Fourteen got to their feet, pulling a bow out from under their desk. Tender blinked. She hadn’t noticed that they had that. It looked natural in their hands, though, their stance practiced and steady.

“We’ve already been through this once,” they said. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to skip to the part where we arrest you.”

The man narrowed his eyes, but Tender cut in before he could say anything. “Also, if you want to pretend that you’re so smart or perfect or whatever, you might not want to start by saying something stupid about our Divines. Just a thought.”

The man turned to her, leaving his side exposed to Fourteen’s arrow. He staggered, but rather than falling, he brought his gun up and pulled the trigger.

Time seemed to slow down. Tender knew Fourteen could handle it, but they weren’t always the best at keeping track of their surroundings during a fight. It would be easy for a stray shot to take out a whole shelf. Depending on what kind of ammunition it was, it might threaten the entire library.

She might not have the patience for most parts of library work, but this was something she could handle. She pushed air as she could into the round’s path, slowing it without letting it hit anything that could trigger an explosion. It glided to a stop on the floor beside her, harmless.

The man frowned. “How did you do that?”

“Maybe our Divines aren’t as fake as you thought,” Fourteen said. 

Tender pressed a hand to her face to hide a giddy smile. This guy didn’t deserve to know anything about her.

Actually, he didn’t deserve to know anything at all. She pulled out her staff and extended it, careful to leave it in its unpowered state. Electricity would be at least as bad for the books as a fire.

Between the two of them, they were able to take the guy out in short order. You’d think if the Earth cult was going to send people all this way they’d at least bother to make sure they stood any sort of chance. Tender created a pair of handcuffs to put on him, though it was mostly a formality at that point, as he wasn’t exactly conscious.

She tossed her head, inordinately pleased with herself. “You know, you’re right,” she said. “That wasn’t so boring after all.”

Fourteen laughed softly. “I was certainly glad to have you here for it.”

“Yeah. Obviously. Who wouldn’t want to have me around?” Tender hoped she wasn’t turning too red.

“I wouldn’t know,” Fourteen said. “I can’t say I’ve been in that position.”

“You dork,” Tender said, as if it would mask the clear affection in her voice. Even now, she couldn’t stop the thrill of happiness that shot through her every time Fourteen told her they cared about her.

Fourteen hummed in acknowledgment, well aware that they couldn’t argue that point. “I don’t think anyone could blame us for taking some time off after that. We’ve probably been emotionally scarred, or something.” They held their hand out to Tender, who gladly took it. “Come on, I’ve heard there are all sorts of interesting fusion restaurants around here.”

“You’ve been here at least two days and you still haven’t even looked at the local restaurants?” Tender shook her head. “It’s a good thing I’m here to help you with these things.”

“Yes, it is,” Fourteen said, and pulled her out the door.


End file.
